The definition of bio-availability is well known. The objective of understanding bio-availability is to understand what the real world benefit to the consumer of each quantity ingested is.
Curcuminoids undergo complex transformations in the body once ingested. The positive health benefits is limited to free curcumin available in the blood plasma ONLY.
However, this forms only a part of the total curcuminoids. Most of the curcuminoids convert themselves into curcumin metabolites which undergo further changes in the body and are then eliminated. This does not provide any health benefit.
However, working back with an objective to hit a higher ‘numerical value’, it has been a practice to measure total curcuminoids by measuring the inactive curcumin metabolites as well. This serves two purposes, both of which are not favorable to the consumer.
- It indicates a higher bio activity and the consumer wrongly infers a higher benefit, when this is clearly not the case.
- The effective dosage is reduced, decreasing any benefit further, while the consumer pays more per effective curcumin.
Needless to say, this is very deceptive.
In contrast BCM-95® (CURCUGREEN®) only measures the true free curcumin and ONLY in the extracted blood plasma which gives a very reliable measure of benefit to the consumer